"The Insane Chicago Way"
A Nation of Lords: The Autobiography of the Vice Lords
The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of an American Gang
My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King
Once a King, Always a King: The Unmaking of a Latin King
From Gangster Disciple to The Blueprint: Growth & Development

The Insane Chicago Way is the untold story of a daring plan by Chicago gangs in the 1990s to create a Spanish Mafia—and why it failed. John M. Hagedorn traces how Chicago Latino gang leaders, following in Al Capone’s footsteps, built a sophisticated organization dedicated to organizing crime and reducing violence. His lively stories of extensive cross-neighborhood gang organization, tales of police/gang corruption, and discovery of covert gang connections to Chicago’s Mafia challenge conventional wisdom and offer lessons for the control of violence today.

The book centers on the secret history of Spanish Growth & Development (SGD)—an organization of Latino gangs founded in 1989 and modeled on the Mafia’s nationwide Commission. It also tells a story within a story of the criminal exploits of the C-Note$, the “minor league” team of the Chicago’s Mafia (called the “Outfit”), which influenced the direction of SGD. Hagedorn’s tale is based on three years of interviews with an Outfit soldier as well as access to SGD’s constitution and other secret documents, which he supplements with interviews of key SGD leaders, court records, and newspaper accounts. The result is a stunning, heretofore unknown history of the grand ambitions of Chicago gang leaders that ultimately led to SGD’s shocking collapse in a pool of blood on the steps of a gang-organized peace conference.

The Insane Chicago Way is a compelling history of the lives and deaths of Chicago gang leaders. At the same time it is a sociological tour de force that warns of the dangers of organized crime while arguing that today’s relative disorganization of gangs presents opportunities for intervention and reductions in violence.

This exposé investigates the evolution of the Almighty Black P Stone Nation, a motley group of poverty-stricken teens transformed into a dominant gang accused of terroristic intentions. Interwoven into the narrative is the dynamic influence of leader Jeff Fort, who—despite his flamboyance and high visibility—instilled a rigid structure and discipline that afforded the young men a refuge and a sense of purpose in an often hopeless community. Details of how the Nation procured government funding for gang-related projects during the War on Poverty era and fueled bonuses and job security for law enforcement, and how Fort, in particular, masterminded a deal for $2.5 million to commit acts of terrorism in the United States on behalf of Libya are also revealed. In examining whether the Black P Stone Nation was a group of criminals, brainwashed terrorists, victims of their circumstances, or champions of social change, this social history provides both an exploration of how and why gangs flourish and insight into the way in which minority crime is targeted in the community, reported in the media, and prosecuted in the courts.

A Nation of Lords is an instructive and relevant look at an explosive period in urban history! This savagely moving autobiography of a violent street gang covers its heyday in the 1960s when it had perhaps ten thousand members in at least twenty-six branches on Chicagos West Side. It is the story of a street gang that became a community organization, supported by private foundations and corporations and dedicated to social, economic, and political development. The gangs violent neighborhood was transformed into Head Starts most improved block where the crime rate decreased as did the number of gang-related killings.

The Black Gangster Disciple Nation was born out of two organizations. In the beginning, there were two separate organizations: The Disciple Nation, whose President was David Barksdale, and the Gangster Nation, whose President was Larry Hoover. There were many branches of both organizations.

Some of the Disciple Nation under David Barksdale’s leadership were: Devit’s Disciples, Falcon Disciples, Royal Disciples, Renegade Disciples, Executioner Disciples, Boss Pimp disciples, East Side Disciples, Sircon Disciples, Motown Disciples, Dutchtown Disciples, Gonzato Disciples, Six-Tray Disciples, Maniac Disciples and four-Tray Disciples. Also during this period of time, David Barksdale controlled the Del Vikings, the Black Souls, and the West Side Cobras.

Some of the branches of the Gangster Nation under Larry Hoover’s leadership were: The Supreme Gangsters (the first branch was considered to be the father of the gangster nation), Imperial Gangsters, African Sniper Gangsters, Raven Gangsters, High Supreme Gangsters, Russian Gangsters, Maniac Gangsters, Mafia Gangsters , 75th Street Syndicate Gangsters, Outlaw Gangsters, 95th Street Supreme Gangsters, the Dells Gangsters, West Side Suprem Gangsters, Racketeer Gangsters, East side Syndicate Gangsters, Gent town Gangsters, and the Black Pimp Gangsters of the West Side.

Everybody in the City of Chicago who as a Disciple or a Gangster was under the leadership of David Barksdale or Larry Hoover, respectively. Up until that point in our history, no one in an organization had ever been referred to as a “King.”

Organizations (commonly referred to as “street gangs”). In essence, David was tired of the senseless violence and mayhem that was destroying the black community because of street gangs’ warfare. He struggled with the idea of how to bring an end to the constant gang warfare that existed between the Disciples and the Gangsters. He realized that such a state of existence would only bring about self-destruction in the lives of ghetto youth. Therefore, he made an offer that Hoover could not refuse. David proposed merging the two organizations with Hoover sharing equal power. From that merger, THE BLACK GANGSTER DISCIPLE NATION was born. This began the era of “Kings.”

Never before in the history of Chicago had gang leaders been known as “Kings.” Looking back, it was an ambiguous situation, but it was a necessary compromise to stop the gang wars and save the lives of members on both sides. David Barksdale was wise enough to know that by bringing Hoover an offer to share the throne of gang leadership as two Kings with equal power, Hoover would accept and thereby end the bloodshed between the two organizations. David was willing to give up so much because he had a broader vision and a creatively positive direction for the new organizations. Such were the circumstances surrounding the birth of “THE BLACK GANGSTER DISCIPLE NATION.”

My Bloody Life: Looking for an escape from childhood abuse, Reymundo Sanchez turned away from school and baseball to drugs, alcohol, and then sex, and was left to fend for himself before age 14. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became his refuge and his world, but its violence cost him friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly his life. This is a raw and powerful odyssey through the ranks of the new mafia, where the only people more dangerous than rival gangs are members of your own gang, who in one breath will say they’ll die for you and in the next will order your assassination.

The Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld by Herbert Asbury This classic history of crime tells how Chicago’s underworld earned—and kept—its reputation. Recounting the lives of such notorious denizens as the original Mickey Finn, the mass murderer H. H. Holmes, and the three Car Barn Bandits, Asbury reveals life as it was lived in the criminal districts of the Levee, Hell’s Half-Acre, the Bad Lands, Little Cheyenne, Custom House Place, and the Black Hole. His description of Chicago’s infamous red light district—where the brothels boasted opulence unheard of before or since—vividly captures the wicked splendor that was Chicago. The Gangs of Chicago spans from the time “Slab Town” was settled to Prohibition days. The story of Chicago’s golden age of crime climaxes with a dramatic account of the careers of the “biggest of the Big Shots”: Big Jim Colosimo, Terrible Johnny Torrio, and the elusive Al Capone. Photographs and illustrations round out this telling of Chicago’s early underworld. “Still the most detailed, reliable, and readable account of the nether side of Chicago’s first century, deserves reading and rereading”

Once A King, Always A King The Unmaking of a Latin King by Reymundo Sanchez As a sequel to My Bloody Life, Sanchez’s memoir of sex, drugs and violence in the Chicago street gang the Latin Kings, the author recounts the hardships of postgang life. He vividly describes the struggle to separate himself from his previous “drunken, drug-crazed, violent” persona. Initially, the temptations of his “past glory” prove irresistible, and while he does not rejoin the gang, he moves back to the ‘hood, gets involved with drugs and eventually goes to prison for possession. Incarceration, however, becomes a “blessing in disguise”; Sanchez spends most days “reading the Bible, sketching, and writing poetry.” His rosy view of prison is a product of his past as a King, because their network in jail gives him protection and respect. Once released, he finds himself alone and tormented by horrifying memories of physical and sexual abuse and a deep sense of worthlessness, but he manages to get a job and learns to feel “the peacefulness of his freedom.” Eventually, Sanchez finds his “soul mate” in Marilyn, an educated Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx whom he idolizes but later abuses, projecting onto her his resentment against his unloving mother. This detailed history can be exhaustive in its graphic, unsettling depictions of sex and violence, and Sanchez’s prose is often clichéd: “She spoke softly and moved in a way that said, ‘I’m all woman.'” The book also lacks specific year references (Sanchez explains he’s concealing essentials to protect himself and other people). But in the end, Sanchez’s story of survival in the face of great odds rings true.

Regarding the 2 Latin King books mentioned, and a 3rd 1, I spoke to an old school king 2 weeks ago. He said they did not get permission from the nation to publish it. And all of the money went to the author, and not the nation, and therefore, there is an SOS on both of them.

Those Latin King books have been selling for nearly 15 years not only online but at book stores across the nation. I highly doubt that the author had any intentions of splitting the proceeds with his boys when he decided to write the books. A best-seller is a book that sells 100,000 copies and an author can expect roughly around $350,000 in royalties. With the amount of money that the individual has made on three books, I doubt that he will be dumb enough to be caught walking around the hood. Then again stranger things have happened. LOL!

When first-year graduate student Sudhir Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects, he hoped to find a few people willing to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty--and impress his professors with his boldness. He never imagined that as a result of this assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade embedded inside the projects under JT’s protection. From a privileged position of unprecedented access, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of his gang as they operated their crack-selling business, made peace with their neighbors, evaded the law, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang’s complex hierarchical structure. Examining the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, and often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone, Gang Leader for a Day also tells the story of the complicated friendship that develops between Venkatesh and JT--two young and ambitious men a universe apart.

Chicago's notoriety as one of the nation's most corrupt cities is well deserved, and few locales have been the setting of as many factual and fictional crime tales. As early as 1906, illegal gambling was being spearheaded by the “Negro Gambling King of Chicago,” Mushmouth Johnson. Johnson, who would become the iconic black gangster, ushered in a century long era of underground gambling halls, political bribery and election fraud that continues to this day. In this fascinating narrative history, author Ron Chepesiuk profiles the key players in the nation's largest black organized crime population and traces the murderous evolution of the gangs and rackets that define Chicago's violent underworld.

Every morning Chicagoans wake up to the same stark headlines that read like some macabre score: “13 shot, 4 dead overnight across the city,” and nearly every morning the same elision occurs: what of the nine other victims? As with war, much of our focus on inner-city violence is on the death toll, but the reality is that far more victims live to see another day and must cope with their injuries—both physical and psychological—for the rest of their lives. Renegade Dreams is their story. Walking the streets of one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods—where the local gang has been active for more than fifty years—Laurence Ralph talks with people whose lives are irrecoverably damaged, seeking to understand how they cope and how they can be better helped. Going deep into a West Side neighborhood most Chicagoans only know from news reports—a place where children have been shot just for crossing the wrong street—Ralph unearths the fragile humanity that fights to stay alive there, to thrive, against all odds. He talks to mothers, grandmothers, and pastors, to activists and gang leaders, to the maimed and the hopeful, to aspiring rappers, athletes, or those who simply want safe passage to school or a steady job. Gangland Chicago, he shows, is as complicated as ever. It’s not just a warzone but a community, a place where people’s dreams are projected against the backdrop of unemployment, dilapidated housing, incarceration, addiction, and disease, the many hallmarks of urban poverty that harden like so many scars in their lives. Recounting their stories, he wrestles with what it means to be an outsider in a place like this, whether or not his attempt to understand, to help, might not in fact inflict its own damage. Ultimately he shows that the many injuries these people carry—like dreams—are a crucial form of resilience, and that we should all think about the ghetto differently, not as an abandoned island of unmitigated violence and its helpless victims but as a neighborhood, full of homes, as a part of the larger society in which we all live, together, among one another.

On September 4, 2012, Joseph Coleman, an eighteen-year-old aspiring gangsta rapper, was gunned down in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. Police immediately began investigating the connections between Coleman's murder and an online war of words and music he was having with another Chicago rapper in a rival gang. In Chicago Hustle and Flow, Geoff Harkness points out how common this type of incident can be when rap groups form as extensions of gangs. Gangs and rap music, he argues, can be a deadly combination. Set in one of the largest underground music scenes in the nation, this book takes readers into the heart of gangsta rap culture in Chicago. From the electric buzz of nightclubs to the sights and sounds of bedroom recording studios, Harkness presents gripping accounts of the lives, beliefs, and ambitions of the gang members and rappers with whom he spent six years. A music genre obsessed with authenticity, gangsta rap promised those from crime-infested neighborhoods a ticket out of poverty. But while firsthand experiences with gangs and crime gave rappers a leg up, it also meant carrying weapons and traveling collectively for protection. Street gangs serve as a fan base and provide protection to rappers who bring in income and help to recruit for the gang. In examining this symbiotic relationship, Chicago Hustle and Flow ultimately illustrates how class stratification creates and maintains inequalities, even at the level of a local rap-music scene.

"This commentary is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of Chicago's Black street gangs, nor does it purport to be based on scientific data. However, as one who has worked with and observed Black street gangs for over twenty-five years, I believe I do have some insight about them. Furthermore, I believe as a Black social practitioner my insight gives a perspective on Black street gangs that has not been provided by many white academicians and social scientists. What this commentary attempts to do is to trace the evolution of Chicago's Black street gangs and identify those factors that have made many of them the violent gangs they are today. In doing so, I have tried to separate myth from fact and list critical realities we must face if we are to have a significant impact on Black street gangs. Although I do not provide solutions to the Black street gang problem, I believe some strategies for remedying the problem can be extrapolated from my commentary."--Preface.

From God’s Monster To The Devil’s Angel: Life Of A Chicago Gang Member

Most boys would love to have a former Chicago Bears player as a father. I never saw the glory in being thrown and kicked around like a football.

When I was born my crack addicted mother was seventeen and my father was thirty-six. My mother left us when I was six to escape the abuse. With no one else to beat, my father committed unspeakable acts of violence against me. At sixteen, I was kicked out of the house onto the gang ridden streets. Out of survival, I joined one of the most murderous gangs in Chicago. My memoir details many near death experiences as I came of age on the deadly streets. Acts from my gang made national headlines. The tumultuous gang life caused me to become oblivious to the person in the mirror. A police officer entered my life and attempted to steer me in the right direction. Time was ticking as this cop tried to undo all the negativity I acquired on the streets. My father was murdered in his home. Common sense pointed to his violent, gang banging son with a axe to grind.

In this book, Irving Spergel details the efforts of his Chicago youth gang project, a comprehensive, community-based model designed to reduce gang problems, including violence and illegal drug activity. He offers an in-depth description of the Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project, revealing the successes and failures of intervention at each level: individual youths, the gang itself, and the community at large. Spergel relates how a coalition of criminal justice, neighborhood, and academic organizations_along with a team of tactical officers, probation officers, former gang leaders, and a neighborhood organization_developed strategies for dealing with hardcore violent male youths from two gangs: the Latin Kings and Two Six. This well-known project has become the model for a series of national initiatives. Policymakers, criminologists, and gang researchers will find this model valuable for assessing gang programs and reducing gang violence.

This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread "alien conspiracy" theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers. Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, Lombardo ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. From nineteenth-century vice syndicates to the modern-day Outfit, Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, Lombardo contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. This book also traces the history of the African-American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago.

There was more to be learned on Chicago's Southside than the reading, writing, and religion taught in schools. In this memoir, authors James T. Joyce and James T. Joyce present a collection of stories about what they learned growing up in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood in the 1950s and '60s on Chicago's Southside. The Guys in the Gang narrates how the neighborhood nurtured love, camaraderie, family values, and racial hatred. It tells of how religion shaped their lives; describes the frequently illegal (but mostly harmless) antics of teenaged boys; discusses the broadening experiences of college and the army; and recalls an assortment of jobs, from the brutally boring and noisy factory work to business in foreign embassies to fighting fires. It tells of people met and befriended, from the super-rich to inept Korean golfers who feared imaginary tigers, including poignant and entertaining snippets from their lives. With humorous touches, The Guys in the Gang describes how this group forged bonds of friendship that endured monkeys and mortal losses, and how the guys supported each other through high times and dark valleys.

Willie "Flukey" Stokes was on the short list of most successful Black gangsters not just in Chicago history, but in American history. An iconic figure in the Windy City, he first became known to police in the late 1950's as a drug dealer, and by the late 70's had become a true Kingpin, dominating the South Side drug trade. Stokes' flair for the dramatic was such that when his son "Willie the Wimp" was killed in 1984, the funeral was memorialized in song by legendary guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Stokes was killed just as the age of crack cocaine was taking root, and in many ways he was the last of a dying breed. During Flukey's era, selling drugs was a complicated game controlled by a select few, not the wild west of teenage gunslingers that characterized the age of crack cocaine.
By now, stories about piles of cash and lists of murder victims associated with the drug underworld are old hat, so what makes the tale of Flukey Stokes worth telling? After sifting through court documents and news articles about not only Stokes, but the various criminal characters involved in his story, I realized that the real story wasn't Stokes, but the system, primarily meaning the Chicago police department and Cook County prosecutor's office, that allowed him and other criminals to thrive, year after year, decade after decade.
Like so many major black drug dealers of his era, Flukey cultivated a Robin Hood image; people said he would find a new home for a burned-out family or reach into his pocket to keep a mother and her children from being evicted. After his death, ``Flukey`` T-shirts sold like hotcakes (or bags of dope) across Chicago's south side.
At the time of his death, federal agents had been investigating his operation for about two years, according to an agent involved in the probe. They were within a couple months of indicting him on charges of racketeering, tax violations and running a criminal enterprise, said the agent, who asked that his name be withheld for the safety of his family.
``What he would have been looking at was life in prison,`` he said.
The Feds claimed that Stokes ran 20 to 40 dope houses, selling cocaine and heroin 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Each house made $20,000 to $60,000 a week; as many as 200 people were on his payroll at any given time, according to the agent.
Today, Chicago is the capital of illegal drugs in America; Willie "Flukey" Stokes was the most powerful black gangster in Chicago history. The story of his life and death is a saga of bodyguards turned to assassins, hitmen turned to informants, informants turned to rapists, shooting victims turned to murder suspects, and kingpins turned to corpses in a never ending cycle.

Honor and the American Dream: Culture and Identity in a Chicano Community

by Ruth Horowitz ·

Thirty-second Street in Chicago. A Chicano community, peaceful on a warm summer night, residents socializing, children playing--and gang warfare ready to explode at any time. Ruth Horowitz takes us to the heart of this world, one characterized by opposing sets of values. On the one hand, residents believe in hard work, education, family ties, and the American dream of success. On the other hand, gang members are preoccupied with fighting to maintain their personal and family honor. Horowitz gives us an inside look at this world, showing us how the juxtaposition of two worlds--the streets and the social ladder--and two cultures, Mexican and American, constantly challenges the residents of the community.